Internet content authors and providers generally agree that serving a client base having disparate computing, data storage, and content presentation capabilities over networks having different data throughput characteristics that may vary over time presents a substantial challenge. Conventional content adaptation techniques attempt to meet this challenge by reducing the size of high-resolution Internet content via resolution and content reduction, and data compression. Such content size reduction generally speeds-up content delivery over a low-bandwidth connection to the client. Unfortunately, excessively reduced and compressed content often provide Internet client device users with a poor viewing experience that is not consistent with human perception. Moreover, such a viewing experience is typically contrary to the high quality impression that most content authors/providers prefer for the viewer to experience, and contrary to the universal access to high quality images viewers generally desire.
To make matters more difficult for content authors/providers and content consumers, small form factor computing devices (i.e., computing devices with compact design) are generally very limited in their capability to present large high quality images to the user. Instead, a substantial amount of manual user input/interaction (e.g., scrolling, tabbing, and zooming operations) is typically required for the user to view and/or locate interesting area(s) when browsing large images on small devices. This presents a catch-22 to content providers who desire to have high-quality images displayed for viewers, yet at the same time, do not wish to present large images to viewers since they generally require a considerable amount of manual user interaction to view the content/message. Systems and methods that address this dilemma are greatly desired.